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18:25 GMT
PARIS, April 27 (KUNA) -- The International Criminal Police Organization
(Interpol) criticized on Wednesday the lack of information sharing with the
Afghan authorities and warned of a global security risk after nearly 500
Taliban fighters escaped from a prison in southern Afghanistan.
The Interpol said the Afghan authorities have failed to provide
international law enforcement agencies with the identifying information on
hundreds, mostly Taliban prisoners, who have escaped from a prison in the
country's south, which could allow them to move across international borders
undetected.
In all, a total of 474 Taliban fighters and one criminal managed to escape
the facility unnoticed after which they fled the area with vehicles.
More than 60 of them have since been re-captured, but Interpol criticized
Afghan authorities as they have not been trained or equipped to take, store
and access photographs, fingerprints and DNA of prisoners to share
internationally.
"It is simply shocking that three years after the largest prison break in
Afghanistan history, including of convicted terrorists, there is no data to be
shared with law enforcement regionally and globally in the event of an escape,
" said Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble, referring to another mass
jailbreak at the same prison in 2008 in which nearly 1,000 inmates escaped.
Noble added Interpol's National Central Bureau in Kabul immediately alerted
neighboring countries when it was informed about the prison break on Monday,
but its efforts were significantly hampered as it had no strong identifying
information to share.
"Until this glaring and serious void in the world's anti-terror efforts is
filled, no country can consider itself secure from criminals and terrorists
who are essentially being given the opportunity to travel internationally,
elude detection and to engage in future terrorist activity," Noble added. (end)
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